Intrasquad Game

Starting out on Day Two, I grabbed some audio from former Loons manager Juan Bustabad (available on the Spring Training Landing page) before spending a couple of hours watching the minor league intrasquad game scheduled to take place at 11.

These scrimmages are about five innings long with each half-inning featuring a new pitcher. The innings last three outs or will conclude early when a pitcher has reached 30 pitches. It's a very casual game, where offensive players jump from dugout to dugout depending on their number of at-bats.

Calling balls and strikes in this game was the 2012 Loons hitting coach Razor Shines, who often got razzed by the collection of non-participating pitchers sitting on the bleachers behind home plate.

Making appearances on the mound on this Saturday were 2011 Loons pitchers Garrett Gould, Shawn Tolleson, Logan Bawcon, and Red Patterson. Meanwhile Kyle Russell, who has put on about 25 pounds, mostly muscle, Brian Cavazos-Galvez, Blake Smith and Chris Jacobs were among the players stepping into the batters box.

The big highlight in the scrimmage came from Joc Pederson, who lifted a home run over the right field wall off of 2011 Midwest League All-Star Garrett Gould. The right-hander is ranked as the team's number six prospect, as rated by Baseball America, while Pederson is not far behind at nine. Video of the shot is also available on the Spring Training landing page.

When Logan Bawcom finished his day, he returned behind the fence where he shared his aspirations with me. He said he was aiming for Chattanooga this season, saying he possesses more focus. The former Loons closer still pitches with his tongue sticking out and said that batters were getting reads on him because of it. He would stick it out only on certain pitches and not others. So among some of his offseason work was making his tongue consistent in his delivery, no matter the pitch.

I touched base with a few more players before taking lunch. Shawn Tolleson's audio is available on the landing page, while Kyle Russell is due up on ESPN 100.9-FM's SportsNight here in the near future.